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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26450833">Half-lives</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings'>Beleriandings</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Torchwood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Far Future, Folklore, Friendship, Gen, Ghosts, Headcanon, Worldbuilding</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 06:27:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,754</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26450833</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In a remote settlement in the far future, the Captain comes to listen to a ghost story, and to help as best he can.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jack Harkness &amp; Owen Harper, Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones, Owen Harper/Toshiko Sato</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Torchwood Fan Fests: Bingo Fest 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Half-lives</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> <b>[The 91<sup>st</sup> century – the planet Blue]</b> </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Khoryx stood nervously on the small barge, looking out over the waves and waiting. There was nothing particularly out of the ordinary that they could see; just the soft, solid grey of the clouds arcing overhead. In the distance, they could see the algatherers’ boats on their usual course to the algae fields down daylight-ways; that thought set of the nervousness anew, worries about this cycle’s algae harvest coming to the fore once more. They thought back to the previous night, when the elders had met to decide what to do about it, about the depth sickness that was plaguing the town, killing off their best algae fields and the people with it.</p><p>But that problem wasn’t what had left Khoryx silent and afraid. That had been what was discussed after, in hushed tones; the depth-ghast.</p><p>Khoryx shuddered at that thought, putting it from their mind for now. They weren’t here for that, after all; they were here for the Captain, who would – waters be kind – solve the problem for them.</p><p>The Captain… the Captain was an unknown quantity to Khoryx. They had been too young to remember, the last time he’d actually been seen in their waters. But he was in all their stories, stories Khoryx knew off by heart, had learned when they were training to become a memory-keeper. The Captain, went the tales, would always protect this planet, the ocean world they loved so well. In their hour of need – whether it be famine or disease, a sunk village or a cruel storm – they could set off the beacon, and the Captain would come to help.</p><p><em>Why</em> he was bound to help them… well, the stories differed on that.</p><p>But that didn’t matter for the moment. What mattered, was that the Captain would come; Khoryx had to believe he would, had to believe in the stories they’d dedicated their life to. And when he came, it would be not a moment too soon: they had set off the beacon with the intent of asking the Captain about the algae dying, the last few cycles. But Khoryx knew they needed to ask about the depth-ghast too. The depth-ghast, they were sure, was involved somehow, haunting these waters.</p><p>Again they put it from their mind, singing themself a familiar little song to keep their mind occupied. That was the advantage of being a memory-keeper; you learned all the songs, and there was always one to calm yourself with when things grew fearful. If there wasn’t, they could always write one themself: that was, after all, part of the job of a memory-keeper, to add to their people’s vast ocean of shifting songs, and sing them to the next generation. Either way, the songs were a wonderful way to ease fears.</p><p>Not that Khoryx was fearful, they told themself sternly. The Captain would help. He’d come, and he’d fix the problem, and the algae would bloom again, and people would stop going missing from the waters around the fortress, and turning up days later with blotches on their skin and holes in their memory. Whatever they needed to do to assuage the depth-ghast, they would do it, and then make a song of it to pass the knowledge on.</p><p>Their thoughts were interrupted by Vesh’rah the polewatcher crying out from the back of the barge; <em>something coming</em>. Khoryx turned to look, just in time to gasp in shock as they saw a flicker of blue-white light in the middle of the barge, before a human figure appeared. A man, they thought, dressed in strange clothes and flicking closed the flap of some device strapped to his wrist.</p><p>He gave them a big, warm smile, pressing the back of their hand in the way that Khoryx’s grandparents had used to do; he had old-fashioned manners, they noted, but he seemed nice enough.</p><p>“Welcome” they said, pressing his hand back. “I’m memory-keeper Khoryx. You must be the Captain...?”</p><p>“For the moment, yeah” he said, with another disarming grin. He was very pretty, thought Khoryx idly. “And… memory-keeper, huh? They always send those to meet me. Guess they figured I like you guys.”</p><p>“We hold the stories” said Khoryx, aware that they were babbling slightly with their nerves. “It’s better to send us to meet travelers. ...Not that we often get those on Blue.” They blushed.</p><p>“Well, it’s always nice to feel wanted.” He gave them a wink. “Nice to meet you, Khoryx.”</p><p>“Likewise, Captain.”</p><p>“Now, I guess there was a reason you set off that beacon.”</p><p>“Oh… oh. Yes, um.” They pulled themself together, reminding themself they had a solemn duty to their people to be getting on with. Out of the corner of their eye, they spotted Vesh’rah, who had blatantly abandoned the watch to stare at Khoryx and the Captain, and Sunnet the navigator who was also clearly listening in. Khoryx drew themself up a little taller. “The algae in these waters are dying” they informed the Captain. “And people in the village are getting sick… it’s been going on for a few cycles now.”</p><p>“Hmm” said the Captain. “What kind of sickness?”</p><p>“Burns across the skin. Cancers, growths. People coming back from the algae harvest bleeding from the mouth and nose, only to die a few hours later.” Khoryx shook their head, thinking of Jeana; no, it was no use, there was no going back on it now. There was nothing they could have done. “And before you say anything, no, it’s not a plague. We got our village’s immu-field retuned by the last med-ship that cut through the atmosphere, only six cycles back. This is something different.”</p><p>The Captain frowned. “Where’s the village moored?”</p><p>“Just downcurrent of the fortress” they said, dropping their voice almost unconsciously. “That’s the thing, see. The fortress.”</p><p>“The fortress?” the Captain looked around across the ocean as though he was expecting to see something on the surface, looking almost nonplussed.</p><p>“Oh!” Khoryx blushed. “Um, sorry, forgot to say. It’s under the water. Big square arti-stone place, built by the Ancients. Arti-stone spikes on the sea floor all around it.”</p><p>He nodded, tilting his head. “Right, right. Okay. Well, that does sound ominous. Anything else?”</p><p>They hesitated, dropping their voice. “...And… there’s the depth-ghast.”</p><p>“The depth-ghast?”</p><p>“A story we have” said Khoryx, almost unconsciously adopting the more straight-backed position they’d been taught for recitations. “A spirit, that lives in the fortress. Leaves people alone most of the time, but can take them over, steal their memories or make them see strange visions. It can control them, but the longer it takes them over, the more it burns them from the inside.”</p><p>“Burns them from the inside?”</p><p>“A sickness” explained Khoryx. “And to me, telling the story back, the symptoms sound similar to what’s been happening in the village lately, even to people who haven’t been anywhere near the depth-ghast.” They shrugged. “It’s why I think it’s all related.”</p><p>The Captain nodded, then gave them a proud smile. “Smart. You don’t just remember the stories and tell them back, do you? You also learn from them, put pieces together.”</p><p>Khoryx really did blush this time, tucking a lock of hair behind their ear. “All part of my job, Captain.”</p><p>“I’m sure. Now, there’s a part I’m interested in, that I want to come back on. This depth-ghast…” he tactfully ignored their slight shudder. “What happens to the people who get taken over?”</p><p>“They just… lose consciousness. Wake up far from where they started, missing most of their memories of the time in between. Sometimes they’ve got burns on their skin, or are sick. But oh, Captain… the worse is the things they dream.” They shook their head. “Their dreams are like the oldest stories, sent directly from the Ancients, from before Blue was Blue. A world with hardly any ocean at all, all huge villages, unimaginable towers and built up caves and metal and smoke and people, so many <em>people</em>, Captain. Like nothing you can imagine. People bleeding, people dying. So many people hurt, passing through their heads.” They quailed at the very notion. “It’s too much, too much for one person to take. They’re just algatherers, used to a simpler life. They shouldn’t have to carry the weight of memories like that.” They looked up at him. “Please, will you help us? Find out what’s causing it, and make it stop?”</p><p>They watched apprehensively, until the Captain nodded. “Yeah” he said, meeting their eye with fierce insistence, clasping their hands. “Yes, memory-keeper Khoryx. I promise I will.”</p>
<hr/><p>That had been several hours ago.</p><p>Now, Jack had swapped his coat and his usual gear for a hazard suit and breathing apparatus – from his beat-up little ship, parked over an unihabited part of the ocean a little further towards the equator, so as not to alarm the locals – and was diving down into the depths of the ocean, the light fading to a deeper blue the farther down he went.</p><p>At some point he took a torch from his belt, shining it down onto the sea floor, which was when he spotted what he was looking for. Vast, concrete spikes lined the bottom of the ocean, chaotically angled to make it impossible to walk across. There was ancient barbed wire too, only saved from rusting away completely after the planet had flooded by the lack of oxygen at this depth, he supposed.</p><p>It was still odd getting used to this, for Jack; he’d seen this planet in every possible climate, over the millennia, but this era was the first time he’d seen the surface entirely flooded. It was odd, and it hurt just a little. It wasn’t like the ocean he’d grown up with, after all; that ocean had been warm, with a sandy bottom, and beaches where children could run along the shoreline. This sea had no shore, blanketing the entire planet in temperate, smooth blue.</p><p>He put it from his mind; in a few more centuries, he knew, the climate would change again, and the people here would have to adapt, or leave. It was his job to safeguard them until then.</p><p>Which brought him back to the task at hand. Coming up before him was a vast structure, built of heavy concrete: this must be the fortress the young memory-keeper had told him about, Jack thought. It wasn’t really a fortress, of course, but he could understand why they called it that.</p><p>It also had something of a tomb about it, he found himself thinking. Built to withstand the ravages of time like the ancient pyramids, even further in the past and now even deeper under water.</p><p>He shook the notion from his mind, diving even further down until he passed the spikes, dropping himself down carefully among them and over the top of the solid steel gate to reach what was apparently the door. He ran his hand over the inscriptions around it; as he’d expected, he didn’t need the translator he’d been using earlier to understand the words. They were in a language he knew very well indeed.</p><p>He ran his hands over hazard warnings and radiation symbols, and flicked on the audio feed from the geiger counter attached to his suit, confirming his suspicions when it started up an intermittent clicking.</p><p>They’d been partly right, Jack thought; this structure was like a fortress in that it had been built to keep people out. But it had also been built to keep something in.</p><p>Jack steeled himself, flicking open his vortex manipulator and teleporting inside the remains of the nuclear power station.</p>
<hr/><p>When Jack materialised inside it was utterly dark, the blackness pressing into him all around. That was the first thing he noticed; the second was that he was still underwater, resisting his movement as he tried to take a step forwards. Sure enough, when Jack raised his torch, the beam illuminated a flooded corridor.</p><p>He knew what it meant, of course, and from there is was fairly easy for him to guess what had happened. Somewhere, the sealed concrete casing they’d added a few centuries after this place was abandoned for good must have sprung a leak, small though it may be. And if water had got in to flood the place, that meant that radioactive particles could have been leeching into the surrounding seawater for who knew how long. No wonder the algae – and the algatherer folk who relied on it – were dying.</p><p>That was the sickness then, Jack thought as he walked in long, slow steps, turning a corner into a new corridor. But it didn’t explain the rest of it. That depth-ghast that Khoryx had seemed so afraid of. Not that there necessarily was anything else to explain; humans loved stories, always had done, always would. Jack had, in his time, come up against every single kind of folklore, every tale of ghosts and monsters and the lonely spirits of the dead. And some of them were true, but some of them were just that: stories.</p><p>Still, he’d found in his experience, it was always worth checking them out. Because maybe, just maybe, it could be–</p><p>Jack drew to a halt, his train of thought interrupted as he came up to a door ahead. The geiger counter had been clicking more insistently all the while, speeding up as he’d walked down the corridor; it had been how Jack had known he was heading in the right direction. Now, as he stood in front of the door, the clicking had reached a frantic rate, the erratic sounds turning almost to a constant stream, like hail on a tin roof.</p><p>He inspected the door, torch passing over the sign at one side. Being in a place like this was bringing up old things, buried things. He frowned, a sudden flash of memory coming. Sitting next to Gwen and Ianto in the conference room as they all tried to tactfully ignore the tears in the others’ eyes. Writing incident reports full of diagrams of layouts, blow-by-blow accounts of what had likely happened, from what they could piece together afterwards.</p><p>It had been too much, had hurt more than any of them had thought they could bear. Yet at the same time it wasn’t enough, would never be enough to help them to understand <em>why</em>. Perhaps there was no answer, he’d thought then.</p><p>It had been over seven thousand years, and Jack had yet to find one.</p><p>He opened the flap of his vortex manipulator, and teleported to the other side of the door.</p><p>Inside the room, he found himself wincing; even with his suit, the radiation was intense in here. With a sigh, he silenced the audio feed from the geiger counter; it was just an annoying, incessant stream of clicks now, and it wasn’t like it was telling him anything he didn’t already know. He didn’t have long here, Jack judged, before he died of radiation poisoning, which was something he had done before and didn’t particularly want to repeat if he could avoid it.</p><p>He turned around in a circle, the torch beam sweeping over ancient controls, walls of switches and alert panels, all dark. Even flooded with water, it was very clear that the place hadn’t been touched in millennia.</p><p>He relaxed; well, at least it was only a slow trickle of radioactive material leaking out, rather than someone finding their way in here and messing with it. It was just him in here, Jack thought as he listened to the overwhelming silence; now that he’d turned off the counter feed, he was very conscious of the quiet, pressing in on his ears from every direction.</p><p>Silence and darkness, thought Jack, as he began to make his way around the control panels, sweeping the light into every corner. That was all there would be for him, ultimately. In time, everyone else would be gone, and it would just be him, all alone in a dark and quiet universe.</p><p>It was not a comforting thought. He sighed, straightening up as he confirmed that there was nothing here. He’d just need to seal the place up and leave, tell the people on the surface to harvest algae elsewhere, to stay far away for a couple of generations until the radioactive material already in the water was cleared away, dispersed by the ocean currents to undetectable levels.</p><p>He turned and began to make his way back through the dark and the silence towards the middle of the room, raising his wrist to punch the commands into his vortex manipulator.</p><p>Which was when he heard the voice behind him.</p><p>“Hello, Jack. Long time no see.”</p><p>He whirled around, eyes darting in the blackness as he swept his torch beam around the room. The voice hadn’t sounded like a <em>voice</em> exactly; it had been like it had been projected right into his head, bypassing his ears and the physical medium of sound entirely. It sounded strange, like nothing he’d heard in so long, speaking a form of a language that had been dead for millennia, living on only in Jack’s memory.</p><p>And yet, despite this, it was <em>familiar</em>, so familiar it brought tears to his eyes.</p><p>Slowly he turned, mind stumbling to reconstruct what he knew – or thought he knew – by the moment. Desperately scared of it being just his imagination. Almost more afraid of the idea that it wasn’t.</p><p>He spoke into the silence, voice cracking a little, sounding strange in the close-fitting mouthpiece of his suit. “Hello? Anyone there?”</p><p>“Turn off the light, Jack.”</p><p>Again, that familiar voice, reaching down into him and pulling up long buried memories: a happier time, a family long gone. Jack licked his lips, nervous, and cautiously turned off his torch beam.</p><p>It took his eyes a moment to adjust, but when they did, he saw there was something there. It was very faint, like the glowing green-white afterimage of a bright light, painted across the retina even after you close your eyes. Blurry but distinct, recogniseable.</p><p>Jack caught his breath, hardly daring to speak. “Owen Harper? That you?”</p><p>That voice again, a hint of amusement in it. “That’s <em>Doctor</em> Owen Harper, thank you very much. Not so much of me left these days, but I’ve still got that.” A pause. “Took you long enough, Jack.”</p><p>Jack opened his mouth and closed it again. He wanted to say he hadn’t known, that afterwards he hadn’t thought, hadn’t dared hope, that there could be anything left after Owen’s body was dissolved by the radioactive waste. That there had been no way to get in and check. That he hadn’t even known this was the same place, and had really only come here by chance, thousands of years later. Thousands of years <em>too</em> late. But in that moment all those things felt too much like excuses, and besides, the words wouldn’t come even if he wanted them to.</p><p>“Owen” Jack said. Then he paused; <em>what</em> <em>the hell did he say?</em> “...Owen, I–” he began.</p><p>But Owen cut him off. “Jack, no. You don’t have to…” he broke off, awkwardly, his image flickering at the edges slightly as though he were trying to master some strong emotion. “Just tell me… the others. Were they...”</p><p>Jack let out his breath, making a quick decision. “They were fine” he said. “Better than fine. They were amazing.”</p><p>“Tell me what happened” said Owen. He held up a hand. “Not… that day. But after.”</p><p>Jack paused for a fraction of a second, before smiling to himself. It wasn’t like he hadn’t thought this over, after all, running it through his head. “They had good lives” he said.</p><p>“...Tell me about them?” the need and vulnerability in Owen’s voice all but broke Jack’s heart.</p><p>But he made himself speak anyway, voice quiet in the flooded dark. “We closed the Rift, a couple of years later” he said. “Torchwood became a much easier job after that. And just in time, too: only a few months after, Gwen had her first baby. Anwen. ...Ianto and I were her godfathers, and Tosh was her godmother. Not normal to have three godparents you know, but Gwen always did what Gwen wanted.” Jack licked his dry lips, forcing himself to keep talking. Smiling despite the way his heart felt like it was cracking down the middle. “I married Ianto a few years after that. July twenty twelve.”</p><p>“...Huh. You two have any kids?”</p><p>“Yeah. Three… our eldest daughter had my chin and our youngest child had Ianto’s nose, and our middle son had both. They also all inherited Ianto’s ability to get me to give them anything they wanted with just a look. Gwen said they were spoiled; Anwen used to babysit them when she was a teenager.”</p><p>He thought he saw Owen smile. “Didn’t take either of you for the domestic type. Tell me about… oh, I dunno, about the wedding?”</p><p>Jack smiled faintly to himself too. “It rained, of course. We had a coffee-flavour wedding cake. ...Tosh drank too much champagne and I found her crying in the corridor halfway through. She said you should’ve been there. She was right.”</p><p>Owen was silent for a moment. “Tell me... more about Tosh.”</p><p>“She never really got over you. She had a happy life – she found love again later on, and they were happy for a while – but there was that little part of her that never stopped grieving.” Jack smiled sadly. “But <em>oh</em>, she was brilliant. She invented so much; saved us from a dalek attacking the Hub with her time lock system, went on to be a pioneer of teleportation and time travel, compact fuel cells adapted from alien tech, but she made it <em>better</em>, like she always did. A lot of the tech that let the human race spread across the stars started with her.”</p><p>Owen was silent for a moment, and then he nodded, smile growing sad. “Thanks” he said.</p><p>“You’re welcome, Owen.”</p><p>“Yeah. It’s good to hear a nice story. Don’t get many of them around here.” He looked up at Jack then, face turning hard. “But while it <em>was</em> nice, and comforting, and all that... all of that, near as I can tell, was pretty much a load of bullshit.”</p><p>“...What?”</p><p>“Oh don’t give me that, Jack. You were never as good a liar as you thought, even then.”</p><p>Jack laughed, breaking on a sob. “Alright. Call it wishful thinking, I guess.”</p><p>“I’ll say.” Owen gave him an accusatory look, not letting up. “The <em>truth</em>, Jack. I’m..” he squinted, “...however old I am. Not a bloody kid who needs coddling. Point is, I want the truth. ...I deserve that much, don’t I?”</p><p>Jack opened his mouth and then changed his mind, closing it again. He sighed, voice cracking. “Some of it was true” he said, rather defensively.</p><p>“Uh-huh. Tosh’s inventions.”</p><p>“...Some of them, yes.”</p><p>“The part about Gwen and her family, definitely though, yeah?”</p><p>“How did you know?”</p><p>“Seems like the sort of thing that would be true” he said, with a shrug. “Gwen Cooper, with Rhys and their kid. Seems like it would happen.”</p><p>“Yeah. She was… good, was Gwen. And she got to have a normal life, kind of. Once I was out of it for good at least.”</p><p>Owen raised his gaze, fixing Jack with an inescapable stare. “What really happened to Ianto and Tosh then, hmm?”</p><p>Jack had to compose himself for a moment before answering, keeping his voice meticulously flat. “They both died. ...I was there, both times. Couldn’t save them.”</p><p>“How did they die?”</p><p>Jack smiled, proud and sad. “Both saving the world, of course.”</p><p>Owen laughed softly, grudgingly. “Now <em>that</em> you didn’t need to tell me.” He frowned. “How long after… me?”</p><p>Jack was silent.</p><p>“Jack… <em>please</em>. I need to know.”</p><p>Jack sighed. “Ianto… September two thousand and nine.”</p><p>“So soon after...”</p><p>Jack nodded, words coming sharp and painful in his throat, even now. “He died in my arms. He told me he loved me, I didn’t say it back. I was too...” he tailed off, not trusting himself to finish the sentence.</p><p>“…<em>Shit</em>, Jack. I’m sorry.”</p><p>Jack shook his head, breathing out carefully. “It was a long time ago. A <em>really</em> long time ago, now.”</p><p>“Still.” Owen frowned, drawing up his light-limned shoulders as though to brace himself. “And Tosh?”</p><p>Jack tensed again. “She died… not long after you did. ...The same day” he added reluctantly.</p><p>Owen’s eyes widened. “What happened?”</p><p>“...Gray. My brother Gray shot her. I got there in time to hold her, but not to save her. I’m sorry.”</p><p>Owen opened his mouth but no words came.</p><p>“I’m <em>sorry</em>” said Jack again. “For her. She deserved so, so much more. And I’m sorry… for what happened to you.”</p><p>There was a long, long silence.</p><p>At last Owen shook his head. “Once, I would’ve been angry” he said. “I would’ve been bloody furious… would’ve knocked you down.”</p><p>Jack felt a lump rising in his throat. “I know.”</p><p>“Now...” he let the sentence hang, spreading his hands. Jack knew that if he’d been able to, Owen would be crying. But he wasn’t a creature of tears or thrown punches or screaming rage: just a quiet shade of himself, trapped here after losing everything, so very long ago.</p><p>The villagers were wrong, Jack thought. The depth-ghast wasn’t a cruel thing, in the end; just a very sad and lonely one.</p><p>Still, that made Jack think of something else. “You stayed here all this time” he said, frowning. “Why?”</p><p>“Can’t exactly leave, can I?” Owen gave a bitter little chuckle. “I dunno the exact mechanics of it. But it’s like I’m tied to this place. As soon as I try to drift anywhere too far from this room, I just sort of...” he made a vague wiggly hand motion, “get all fuzzy. Next thing I know I’m back here.”</p><p>“You’re some kind of projection or afterimage, loosely tied to where your body was” mused Jack, thinking aloud. He caught Owen’s raised eyebrow and sighed, thinking how to explain. It was made harder by the fact that he didn’t fully understand himself, but he’d seen enough over the years to have theories. “You remember the Night Travelers?” he pushed down the memories that surfaced, memories of sitting next to Ianto, their arms touching as they watched lights play across a screen. “Projections, made from light on film, reconstructed from the chemical coating. You might be something similar, but made of… the imprint of all that radiation, combined with the effects of that glove that brought you back in the first place. Keeping part of you… here.” He frowned, seeing Owen didn’t look any more convinced than he felt. “Look, you’re here” he said. “It doesn’t seem like you can move far from here without a body. Does it matter why?”</p><p>“Uh, it kind of matters to me, yeah?”</p><p>“Okay, okay I take your point” said Jack, beginning to pace as he thought. “Listen, Owen–”</p><p>“I’m fading, Jack.”</p><p>Jack broke off at Owen’s interruption, head snapping up to look at the dim outline of him in the darkness. He felt a trickle of fear run down his spine. “What?”</p><p>“I’m fading” said Owen quietly. He raised his hand in front of him, turning it this way and that, wiggling his faintly-sketched fingers. “I’ve noticed it for a while now. I’m fading away to nothing, just… very, very slowly.” He shrugged. “What you said about radiation...”</p><p>“Radioactive decay” breathed Jack. “Half-lives, exponential decay with a long, long tail-off...”</p><p>“Millennia” said Owen. “But not forever.” His voice sounded strained. “Jack, am I gonna disappear?”</p><p>“...Not completely” said Jack, choking on the words.</p><p>“But I’ll keep fading” said Owen. “Like half-lives, y’know? Keep halving and halving until there’s so little left you can’t detect it any more, even though it’s not <em>quite</em> nothing.”</p><p>Jack said nothing, not wanting to tell Owen that this was exactly his own suspicion.</p><p>Owen, however, didn’t seem to need telling. “Thought so,” he scoffed, folding his arms. “Well, I suppose that’s something to look forward to.”</p><p>“Better than being dead.”</p><p>“Gotta say, that feels just a <em>little</em> meaningless, coming from you.” Owen sounded scathing in the way that Jack knew – even after all this time – actually meant he was scared. Jack wanted nothing more than to reach out to him, to take him in his arms and hold him, give him what little comfort he could. But he knew that Owen was not solid, he was only a projection made of light; if he tried, his hands would pass right through him.</p><p>They’d both been right before, he thought, all those years ago when Owen had told him it wasn’t fair, and Jack had agree with him: it really, really wasn’t.</p><p>Jack frowned, remembering something else. “You said… you couldn’t move far from here without a body. The people up on the surface talked about memory blanks, of waking up far away from here… was that you?”</p><p>“...Aaaand he gets there eventually.”</p><p>“You possessed those people…”</p><p>“Spare me the lecture on ethics. People started getting nosy, I was just trying to get them out of this bloody place before they gave themselves radiation poisoning. Left them at a nice safe distance.”</p><p>“I wasn’t going to lecture you” said Jack, frowning. “I’m just surprised, actually. If you really can leave here if you have a body, why didn’t you just take one and run?”</p><p>Owen seemed a little offended by this. “What d’you take me for, Jack? That’s an awful thing to do to someone.” He shuddered. “Besides, I’m still a doctor. Do no harm and all that, y’know? I think their bodies reacted badly to my presence: it was like it was accelerating the onset of radiation poisoning. It seemed cruel to stay longer than I needed to.”</p><p>Despite his words, he looked almost wistful. Jack couldn’t blame him; he couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like to suddenly <em>feel</em> again, after so long trapped down in this no-place, without even a body. Even when he’d been buried in the ground he’d still had sensation, even if his moments of lucidity were filled only with pain and dread. And that had only been for a scant two millennia. “...Okay” he said hesitantly, pacing again as a plan began to form in his mind. “So, to summarise: you’re trapped here until you fade to nothing, unless you find a body to carry you. But anyone you possess will suffer the effects of having you along for the ride.” He looked up at Owen. “So… what if there was someone who wouldn’t be permanently damaged by it?”</p><p>Owen stared at him for a brief moment before he realised what Jack was suggesting. He always did catch on quick, Jack thought. “You’re not serious.”</p><p>“I’m perfectly serious.”</p><p>“But… you… I’ll hurt you, Jack.”</p><p>“Not permanently.”</p><p>“No. But continually.”</p><p>Jack opened his arms. “Owen. I don’t care. I’ve hurt <em>you</em>, Owen. I failed you… this is the least I can do.”</p><p>“It doesn’t work like that, Jack” said Owen quietly; clearly, he was fighting some internal battle, working hard to master himself. “It’s not a matter of your pain as payment for mine.”</p><p>“Then think of it as a gift” said Jack. “Offer’s there. Your ticket out of here.”</p><p>Owen stared at him, his face faint and dim in outline in the dark. “...Jack...”</p><p>Jack looked right at him. “Owen, I can’t just leave you here” he said quietly. “Not now I’ve found you again. Not after… everything.”</p><p>Owen stared at him for a long, long time. “...Oh go on then” he said at last. “Yes.”</p><p>Jack grinned, as he stepped closer to Owen. “Well, let’s get a move on. C’mon, I don’t think I have much longer in here before the radiation gets me, and I doubt you want that as your first physiological experience in millennia.”</p><p>Owen winced. “Why do I feel like I’m gonna regret this?”</p><p>“You won’t” said Jack, coming up to stand in front of Owen. “<em>I’d</em> regret it if I left you here. And I know you would too.”</p><p>“I dunno what this’ll do to your body, long term” warned Owen, eyeing Jack rather cautiously.</p><p>Jack chuckled, feigning shock. “You mean there was nothing in the medical literature of the twenty-first century about what happens when a radioactive ghost shares a body with an immortal man? I’m shocked.”</p><p>“I’m serious, Jack” said Owen. “Fair warning, this might… change you. I don’t just mean your body, either. It’s going to be… an adjustment.”</p><p>Jack sighed. “I’ve been the same for a <em>really</em> long time” he said. “Maybe it’s time for a change.”</p><p>Owen met his eye for a long moment. Then he nodded, and held up his pallid, spectral hand, palm out towards Jack. Following his lead, Jack smiled and held up his own palm, facing Owen’s but not quite touching. “I’m so glad I got to see you again, Owen Harper” he said.</p><p>“Yeah, well. Not much to see, is there?”</p><p>Jack grinned. “In a moment there will be.”</p><p>And with that, he touched the tips of his fingers to Owen’s ghostly ones. As he did the world spun around him, a great lurching motion that for a moment stole the strength from his muscles, nausea sweeping over him in waves, making him lose his balance and nearly topple to the ground as his knees went weak.</p><p>And then it was over, as soon as it had begun.</p><p>And there was something <em>new</em> there, inside his head. He found himself gasping, flexing his fingers as his senses rearranged themselves, without having consciously decided to make the motion. But as he did, something within him shouted in joy and triumph, something in his head that wasn’t <em>him</em>. He could feel it pressing up against his own consciousness, a distinct entity.</p><p>Jack smiled. <em>Hi, Owen!</em> he thought at it. <em>Well, this is cosy</em>.</p><p><em>Don’t go getting any ideas now, Jack</em>, came the thought back, and he felt himself smile even wider, almost nervous with the bright well of possibility, after so long down here in the dark.</p><p><em>Don’t worry</em>, he thought at Owen. <em>I’ll leave those to you for a bit. All yours</em>. ...<em>Once we get out of here, that is</em>.</p><p>A swell of incredulous hope. <em>You serious, Jack?</em></p><p><em>Yeah. I’ve been here for a long time. May as well let someone else drive for a bit, huh?</em> He gave Owen the spiritual equivalent of a wink. <em>Don’t do anything I wouldn’t</em>.</p><p>He felt Owen’s laugh ripple through his chest. <em>Well, what are we waiting around for? Let’s get the fuck out of here</em>.</p><p><em>First we need to plug the leak in this place, stop it </em> <em>poisoning</em> <em> the algae.</em></p><p>Owen smiled. <em>Fine, whatever. It’s your body, after all. </em></p><p><em>But then we</em><em> can get off this whole planet, if you want</em>.</p><p><em>Even better</em>.</p><p><em>You’re gonna love it out there, Owen. But first, I’d like to make a stop on the surface</em>… he paused, feeling Owen’s consciousness tense against his.<em> Before I go, there’s something I need to do</em>.</p><p>He felt Owen relax again. <em>Anything you want, Jack</em>.</p>
<hr/><p>“There! He’s come back!”</p><p>Khoryx jolted awake on the barge to the sound of Vesh’rah shouting, and lifted their head up to see that she was quite right; it had got dark while they waited, but there was something bobbing on the surface of the calm water, caught in the beam of their lamps amongst the black ripples.</p><p>“Pull him in!” they ordered.</p><p>The three of them together made quick work of it, helping to drag the Captain back over the rail, water streaming off his suit and gear and sluicing out onto the deck. He was heavy, soaked with saltwater, and it didn’t help that he was only half cooperating with them, half trying to fight them off.</p><p>“What’s wrong?” asked Khoryx nervously, as he fought off their grip on his arm to help him up off the wet deck. “If there’s something down there...”</p><p>“There isn’t” he said hastily. “It’s fine, it’s all fixed now.”</p><p>Khoryx blinked. “It is?”</p><p>“Yeah. But you shouldn’t touch me too long; I’ve been exposed to high concentrations of radioactive material in the water for a while now. It’ll be on the outside of my suit.”</p><p>“Uhhhh...”</p><p>“Bad stuff” said the Captain, obliquely. “Don’t touch.”</p><p>They nodded. “Understood.”</p><p>“And you shouldn’t go near there anymore. I’ve made it safe, sealed it all up, but I don’t want anyone going down there and messing with it.”</p><p>“The algae fields–”</p><p>“The water’s contaminated. You gotta abandon those fields… I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Abandon them?!? For how long?”</p><p>“A long, long time. Preferably forever. Find new ones, far from the fortress. Tell your children, your children’s children. Make sure future generations know.”</p><p>They nodded solemnly, pushing down their alarm. “I’ll write a song about it.”</p><p>He seemed about to argue with this, and then nodded. “That should help” he told them.</p><p>They nodded, breathing in and out to calm themself. “...And the depth-ghast?” they asked, slightly dreading the answer.</p><p>To their surprise, he smiled. “The depth-ghast is at rest now” he said. “They won’t be any trouble anymore.”</p><p>Khoryx’s eyes widened. “Thank you! ...What can we do to repay you?”</p><p>He waved this away. “Don’t. It’s what I’m here for.” But then he hesitated for a second longer. “...On second thoughts. Khoryx?”</p><p>“Yes, Captain?”</p><p>“If you want some other stories to tell… I’ve got a few I think you might like. True stories, of heroes who saved the world.”</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>“Yeah” he said, smiling gently. “Their names were Ianto, Toshiko, Gwen, Owen and Jack. Some of the things they did together… might make for a good ballad or two. At least they should be remembered.”</p><p>Khoryx nodded enthusiastically; truly new tales – or very old tales, as the case may be – were hard to come by these days, the shifting oceans poor for stories. Tales of the Ancients were an even rarer delight. “I’ll take you back to the village; it’s moored just downcurrent. You can eat with us, and tell your stories. Making a ballad of them is the least I can do, after the help you’ve given us today.”</p><p>He smiled, pleased by this. “Sounds like a good deal to me.”</p>
<hr/><p>Long after dinner, after songs around a fire on a floating village under the cloudy night sky, Jack was back on his ship, preparing to leave while Owen took a back seat in his head.</p><p>He’d promised Owen control, yes, and that was all very well until they needed to pilot a ship – even a rather antiquated and basic one like Jack’s – when the last vehicle Owen had driven was his twenty-first century sports car.</p><p>Before they took off, Jack took a moment to put his coat back on carefully, smoothing it down for a moment before settling in the pilot’s seat.</p><p><em>Nice coat</em>, Owen thought at him. <em>What, does the universe implode if you don’t maintain your weird nineteen-forties fashion sense?</em></p><p>Jack smiled slightly, stroking a finger over his lapel. <em>Ianto got me this, before he died</em>.</p><p><em>It’s really the same one?</em> He felt Owen’s surprise.</p><p><em>Well, you could argue that</em>, thought Jack. <em>I’ve definitely replaced every thread and every button of it, one by one, so it’s not really the same. But...</em></p><p><em>...But also it is</em>, thought Owen, rolling his inner eye. <em>There was a story like that you know. Back on </em><em>E</em><em>arth. Can’t remember, </em><em>something about</em><em> a guy with a ship</em>…</p><p><em>The ship of Theseus</em>, supplied Jack. <em>Old thought experiment. Though, I really could’ve paid more attention at those ancient Greek philosophy symposia. In my defense, there were a lot of kinda distracting Greek men in surprisingly skimpy togas</em>…</p><p>In his mind he felt Owen sigh, exasperated but fond. <em>It’s gonna be a long eternity, isn’t it?</em></p><p>Jack only laughed, finally taking his hands off his coat lapels – the cloth was still delicate, even with the repairs over the aeons that had left it more a patchwork than anything – put his hands on the ship’s controls, and pulled them into take-off, eyes turned once more to the sky.</p><p>And true to his word, once they were through the clouds and out of the atmosphere he let Owen’s consciousness rise to the forefront of his mind again as the ship’s nose tilted up towards the stars, the display filling with them, sprinkled across the velvet dark.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>For the Torchwood Fan Fests Bingo Fest 2020 prompt, "dark".</p><p>.....Look. I'm a physicist and every time I attempt to write about anything to do with that nuclear power plant scene in Exit Wounds, my soul shrivels up like "this is not even slightly how nuclear power plants work, what do I even DO with this". But the idea for this fic wouldn't leave me alone, to an extent that I was able to bypass that impulse and write weird-radioactive-ghost-consensual-possession-friendship fic about it? So that's a thing that exists now! And I really hope you enjoyed it!!!</p><p>Find me on tumblr @ultraviolet-eucatastrophe!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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